Is Partnering With My Uncle Going to Be a Problem?

From the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is Entree Leadership, where I take calls from leaders like you about what it takes to win at any stage of business and leadership. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host with over 30 years of experience leading in the trend. the trenches right alongside you. If you have a question you want to ask on the show, fill out the form on entree leadership dot com slash ask or call and leave a voicemail at 844-944-1070.

844-944-1070. Lane is in Austin, Texas. Hi, Lane. How are you? Doing great. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up? Hey Dave. Uh I just got a quick question about uh our family business. Uh I'm the general manager of our family owned equipment rental company. It's owned by my father and my uncle and they've done a phenomenal job job. Uh they're completely debt free.

Um our annual income's about two point five for twenty twenty four with about six hundred thousand profit and about two million in twenty twenty five with about four hundred thousand profit. Uh my father's starting his later phase of his secession plan. And as I'm his only son, the plan is to pass the business down to myself. My question is, how do I know it's the right time to ask my uncle if he's ready to sell his half of the business?

Your dad is you're buying your dad's portion or you are you being given it? No sir, I'm being given it. Awesome. Very cool. How old are you? I am thirty-four. How old is your dad? My dad is sixty-four. How old is your uncle? Ah, that's a great question. I believe he is about fifty seven. Oh. How's your relationship with your uncle? He's still active in the business? Uh partly. Uh the he works about part time. I mean, really, I mean he was working about a half a year, uh, in reality probably.

Okay. All right. You're gonna be partners with your uncle soon? Yes, sir. That is correct. Okay. All right, good. All right. Um And he knows this is going on. Yes, sir. Yeah, that's that's been pretty well the plan from the beginning, um whenever I came to work for him. Yeah. Okay. Well, I don't know why it would be awkward to talk to him about it tomorrow.

I mean, um uh uh you know, and just approaching this as like open-handed, not demanding or anything, but say, you know, I'm walking into this half ownership with you, you and I are getting ready to be partners. and you're only fifty seven where dad's you know, sixty four, he's on his way out. You're working about half time, Unc, and so

Uh, I mean, I wanna learn about what your plan is for your half and can I buy it and when you're ready and what are you thinking? What's your timeline? Are you thinking ten years, are you thinking ten months, or you're thinking ten days? I don't know what you're thinking and I just wanna let you know I'm I'd like to be in the conversation with you and

being uh be included in the thought pattern, uh what what's your thoughts? And just ask him. No pressure, but just, you know, trying to figure out, you know, I'm sure he's thought about it. More than likely, yes, sir. If he hadn't something's wrong. I mean not he's probably not pl uh honestly, if he's not brought it up, he's probably not planning anything soon.

Yeah, and I don't think he I don't think he is anytime soon or anything like that. He's probably thinking he's gonna work to sixty five, isn't he? Probably. I he might go, I wanna work for forever. I don't know. He's uh he's a go getter. Mm-hmm. Except for that part where he works half a year. Yes, sir. Okay. He was a go getter, but now he's a slowed down go getter. Okay. Uh all right. The uh Yeah, I mean, in always honor...

that generation and just say what you what you told me when you opened up the call would be a great way to open up the conversation. What you and dad have built here is incredible and I've always admired you as a go getter. These are all factual statements. And so I don't know how your mind is working about this, um, but I would appreciate it as your soon to be partner.

If we could talk about what your plan is and how I can help and how I can be part of that plan uh whenever it is. I'm not trying to push you out. I'm just trying to communicate and find out what's Rumbling around between your two ears up there, you know. I mean what are you thinking?

And um he may have a lot of thoughts on it. But I I would just, you know, no pressure, not trying to throw my weight around. I'm doing this from a position of honor. You and dad are great. You're a go getter, all that stuff, and I'm not in a hurry. Nothing like that. There's nothing on fire. I don't see any s any big problems. There's no ultimatum. No, none of that in your body language or your tone or anything. Just very open-handed. But just um, hey, how can I help you?

Live your dreams. And what is your dream for this half of the business?'Cause I'm very interested in it when you're ready. What would he do if you said that? Uh I don't really know, honestly. So we've we've kinda had a I mean, we've had a few conversations about it and I mean it's alright where I got I'm gonna work till I die, you know. He did say that. Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna wait'til I die.

Okay mentality and well I know what to pray for. No I'm kidding. Oh man. Yeah, that was that's mainly my my big thing is is going about it. I mean if and if he didn't want to sell, I mean just I guess assessing that with pay structure uh

You know, going through that and saying, Hey, you're working half a year, I'm working a whole year. Yeah. And are you guys gonna be fifty fifty at that point? Yes, sir. Yeah, we would be fifty fifty. Yeah. And it it it it is fair that we both Work the same number of hours for the same number of profit points, right? That's not unfair discussion for two partners to have.

Um and you know, if you want to work till you die, that's fine. Okay. What do you what do you plan to do with it when you die? Yeah. And um and how you feeling? I'm kidding. I can't resist. That's just that's such an underhand pitch. I'm just I would want to mess with him for sure. But the um my family's kinda sick that way, so we would have these bad jokes. But um Yeah, it's not funny for some families. That wouldn't be that wouldn't go over well. But um anyway, the um yeah, I I uh

Yeah. Like I say around here I'm gonna work until I don't make sense anymore and one of mine will look at me and say What do you mean by that? Like I'm already not making sense. They're messing with me. So anyway. Uh so yeah. Um Would try over time, little bits at a time, just try try to start having a breakfast with him once every two weeks.

And just build a relationship to where he'll start to want to share with you and he'll start to want good things for you. And he'll start to think, How can I, you know, hand this over and say, I'm more than willing to purchase this. When you want me to, do you want me to purchase it from your family after you're gone? Or how can we arrange that in the uh documentation if you want to work till you die?

Um or wha what is it but you don't have to cram all that up in one conversation. But I I just I'd keep an ongoing dialogue, build a relationship. Um, he's gonna be your partner and then you can solve for you can solve for who's working and who's on what pay scale and all that kind of stuff. And

Um and then just start talking about how this transitions, because no transition plan is a bad one, especially 50-50. That's dangerous. The other thing you could do is you could involve your dad. He's the older brother. And ask your dad to get his little brother to come up with a freaking schedule. Okay. I mean or or at least give us some kind of indication like I'm just gonna work till I drop. That's that's just bull red that's redneck bullcrap, okay? You're not either.

So what is what are you really gonna do? Or if you do drop, what am I gonna do with your widow or your my cousin Eddie who's crazy and now I gotta deal with him? I mean, your dad can help with some of that as the older brother and ask him to help you. facilitate that conversation. Matter of fact, he might even help you facilitate the conversation on the working half the time and getting paid for full time things.

That might be okay for him to do as he's as he's heading out the door. Because he's in the position of older brother, and I would imagine that pecking order still probably carries at least some weight. you know, come up from thirty four year old to get the fifty seven year old to listen to you. Yeah, that that actually might work better than anything else I've said as I've been rambling. So give that a shot. Good question and I'm glad you're addressing it and I'm glad you're being proactive.

make sure you play through on that. I've seen these things fall apart and they they're not pretty when they fall apart. So let's let's you know let's have a plan and execute the plan. Don't really care what it is, but let's have a plan and execute the plan. Owning a business can be a heavy load. You want to serve your customers well, make a healthy profit, and grow. And your team, family, and customers are all counting on you. And now everybody's talking about AI like it's magic.

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Hey Dave, this is John from Toledo. I'm the CEO and owner of a company that sells services and rents industrial equipment. We have twenty three employees and we'll do about nine point three million in revenue this year. My question is, how do I wisely manage business debt in a company that's both growth oriented and very cash intensive, especially while I'm also getting interest from high value buyers who could eliminate that debt and create financial freedom?

high value buyers. Like somebody to buy the business? Oh Well, the high value buyer is going to look at a balance sheet, and so your value, your business minus your debt. Uh so debt doesn't help a high value buyer. Debt hurts him. Um, and debt hurts your stability and your growth as well. Um I mean you can have some artificial growth and hockey stick up, but you've added instability and risk out the wazoo when you do that.

And so I wouldn't wisely manage debt. I would do away with debt completely. and operate cash from the ground up. That's what we have done for thirty-five years and we've got some very expensive pieces of equipment that, you know, we started out with cheaper ones and we added as we had profit to add from.

Um but that way we didn't have any problems as soon as if there's a customer problem and they didn't pay or there's a cash flow problem or there's something else. You don't have cash problems as much when you don't have debt. Yes. So I agree. Yeah. So I'm gonna buy equipment. slow enough that I can pay cash for it.

That's also going to make you more wise in the purchase of the equipment because if I can only buy one piece of equipment instead of three, I'm going to really look at which one's going to ROI, which one's going to stay rented the most, and give me the least problems with maintenance.

And, you know, which one has a high appeal to the customer base I'm working with? Instead of like, Well, I'll just try this other one since that's not real money, it's borrowed money'cause it doesn't even feel like you're using real money then. And, you know, you you take a lot of risks, you magnify the weaknesses

of the business when you borrow into it. And so I I I would be paying cash for this and that's not gonna hurt you in the event that uh someone comes along and wants to buy it, unless they're buying it based on gross revenue multipliers regardless of debt, which means they're stupid. If they're if they're ignoring let mean let's let's pretend you took on four million dollars worth of debt and you ran your gross up, okay?

And they buy based on the gross and ignore the debt. Well that makes that mean that's that would be dumb. That's a very naive approach to a purchase. So you only use a gross multiplier on revs uh is if you have a standardized amount of debt in the industry, which would be little to none in your world, because your world

Equipment wears out, equipment is new, uh competitors come online with a different brand that you're not carrying. All kinds of stuff happens that makes the equipment you bought five years ago trash. So most of our debt is tied up in the rental business. Yeah. Um, and these are five year rentals that and the equipment stays for anywhere from ten to fourteen years. Um and so we have been borrowing as we scale to because we have some

very large customers that uh use us to provide this equipment to their customers. And so yes, so the debt is is tied up in the rental business. And then we're making the assumption that they all stay solvent. Just because they're large doesn't mean they stay solvent. Right. And that's well that's and that's the challenge. So I think that's a good thing. If they go broke, you're bankrupt.

Exactly. Yeah. And that's so that's that's where it's getting into the personal right. So w we are we are going through this growth cycle, providing equipment really nationally, and we have this growing debt, but we we have had some approach Uh we we've been approached by some uh some some large buyers that would pay us multi multiples of EBITDA and I could clear up that debt completely.

But it's a family business. We take care of it. Yeah, then you're out of business. I mean they bought it and you're gone, right? Well, it's potentially. But I I w I would probably stick around. It it'd be a buy you know. But I mean you'd be you'd be in a s you'd be an employee at that point and you'd have a liquidity moment, right?

Yes, that's that is correct. Yeah. And so I mean that's a different scenario. If you're building it to sell in the next eighteen months and you want to run debt up through the top and take a risk of bankruptcy if you don't sell it, then that's that's a high risk play. But personally, I just be operating in my business and make it look prettier and prettier and prettier and more stable. And, you know, I just think she's a prettier girl at the dance for a buyer then.

Uh, that's what I think. But um You know, i I don't know who your buyer is and I don't know how sophisticated they are. And and'cause again, I've watched people pay multiples of what m way more than they should for stuff based on the a s based on the balance sheet and based on the you know, th the net operating income that they're looking at. And so um Because you I mean Ibadah's one measure. And uh but I I I don't mind measuring actual cash. What what am I getting in my pocket?

And that's not a bad thing to measure if you're buying a property or buying a uh a property or buying a um uh a business either. So um It it depends on what game you're playing. You can't play both. Okay. If if you play a game where you're running up the debt to run up the revenues to make it look attractive to somebody who's not using a formula I would use. You are putting yourself at risk if they don't buy because you're in a very high risk, tenuous situation then. You're asking for trouble.

If instead you're playing what Simon Sinek calls an infinite game where we're really not for sale, if somebody wants to come buy it, they'll we'll talk about it, but we're really not for sale. Uh we're just over here trying to make a business that's sustainable. Then you grow slower

And you grow with organic cash and you avoid debt because your sustainability is there. And if one of the large customers decides they're gonna piss on you and not pay you just to squash the little guy, or they become insolvent, then you're not bankrupt. But if one of these guys just bows up and says he's not gonna pay you.

And he's going to redirect the cash flow because he got a new CEO and they're going to open a new division. And what they they're going to build the new division on their payables. And that's happened before. And they decide I'm not going to pay you for 90 days. Dude, you're in receivership. You're screwed.

And that's what you're not anticipating is one of these big companies not misbehaving or not becoming insolvent. And they misbehave and become insolvent as much as little companies do. So no, I'm not not gonna play that role. So thank you. Thank you for the question. We had an opportunity a few years ago. It's a little it's dissimilar but not.

one of the largest retailers uh out there came to us and wanted us to create a financial package a s a specially uh trademarked, um branded, co-branded package of materials to teach people about money. And they were gonna put it on their shelf with their name and our name on it, right? And we would create it all. And it was a ten million dollar order, which for us was a lot of money, especially in those days.

And I thought, well, this is great. We get to do business with so-and-so. And it's a ten million dollar order. And then we kept working the numbers and really there wasn't a lot of margin in it. We weren't making a ton of profit. We're making a little bit. But it was a nice branding play'cause we'd have this huge distribution and be associated with a positive brand and all these things. So I thought, Okay, even if it's not a lot of money, we'll try it. And then the contracts come in.

And they wanted us to produce ten million dollars worth of stuff with their name on it and our name on it, which means there's only one place in the world to sell it, there. But they had full return. Meaning that if the sales weren't what they thought they should be, they could just ship'em back and get a refund. Which means I would have all this stuff in the warehouse that I've already paid for that I can't do anything with except throwing the dump.

Because it's got other people's name on it and crap, right? And I'm like the so in other words, I have to eat all the risk of sales and you got an eight dollar an hour stock clerk putting this out maybe on the right shelf, maybe not. And then maybe it doesn't sell because it wasn't on the end cap where it's supposed to be. No, thank you. Not with full returns. I said, I can't do this with full returns. They said, well, everyone.

Accepts these con this contract language because they want to do business with us. And I said, Well, you can't say that anymore. 'Cause now everyone hadn't done it,'cause I'm not doing it. And we turned around and walked away from a ten million dollar order and we cried a little bit. Yeah. Threw up a little bit in my mouth. Yeah, it was bad.

Uh I mean ten million dollars, right? That's uh the mark it wasn't ten million dollars profit, but still it was a lot of money and it was a big deal. And we had a lot of effort.

in building up the idea with them and working the contract and everything. But I could not accept the risk of high returns of them being ill becoming Not solvent, but worse than that, one of their local regional distribution places becomes incompetent, loses the crap, and then they want to send it back for a full invoice, which would be a A freckle for them, but for me it'd be a deal breaker.

And I I'm not accepting that risk. Uh you know, you want me to take on all the risk of the whole thing. I can't it's not logical. I'm not doing it. And so to me, this thing we're discussing, John, is in the same boat with that. It's it's just not worth it. And and but this idea that somehow you can depend on major huge companies to always have your best interest at heart when you're the little guy, they don't even know you're there.

And they don't care. And they squash you like last week's roach and not think anything about it. It just you just and it's not that I'm cynical, it's just that I'm cynical. So um you just got you just gotta be real um wise when you're looking at these things and not set yourself up for a fall because that that's what this these situations can come down to. Good question, man. Sounds like you got a cool business and if selling it is your dream, I hope it comes true for you.

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This is from Ben in Hartford, Connecticut. Dave, I run a 14-person home services business and lately we've been dropping the ball. Missed appointment windows, slow follow-ups, miscommunication between the office and the field. Everyone keeps blaming someone else and I can't tell if this is a person problem or a systems problem. What's the first practical step to figure out where the real breakdown is so I can fix it without guessing? Yeah.

Well, the good news is you run a small enough business that you can step on this pretty hard. I simply would put everyone in a room and say, No more. We work too hard to get the customers. Costs too much to acquire a customer. And to mistreat them with missed appointment windows, slow follow-up and miscommunication stops now. And you can't blame somebody else. It's your job.

If you're sitting here, it is your job to make sure the appointments are hit, to make sure that the follow ups are instantaneous, and to make sure that miscommunication between the office and the field goes away. It's your job to step on it and fix this. And we are not going to do this anymore. And if you do this anymore, by doing it, you are stating you don't want to be here. Because I just said we don't have slow follow up. We don't have missed appointment windows as of right now. Period.

And so it's a condition of further employment. In other words, you get to keep your job if we stop doing this. Because I'm not going to tolerate it. We're not going to live like this. Life's too short. And I'm not mad at a certain person, but these processes that are breaking down are absolutely ridiculous. Now, you guys tell me what we need to do to fix this so it doesn't happen anymore. And tell me without pointing at a person.

'Cause I don't think a single person is the problem. I think l everybody's contributed something and everybody's contributed nothing to this problem. So as of right now, without throwing somebody under the bus. What do you think we need to do to make sure that there's not any missed appointments? Why are we missing an appointment? What happened?

Well, it didn't get on the books. Well, why do we not get it on the books? We need some better software. Okay, good. Let's get some better software. We need a Follow up. But you're not running something big enough that you can't watch all three of these things. Very intensely with your hands up to your elbows down in the business, getting muddy all the way to your armpits, finding out what the flip is broken here. You got to get down in there.

And when they see that you're down in it, they're gonna go, uh-oh, he's not kidding. Because uh oh, I'm not kidding. We're not gonna do this anymore. So first you lay that baseline, then you say, okay, guys, now you help me. What can I do to help you? Because I'm going to be helping you. I'm either gonna be helping you out or I'm gonna be helping you out. So I'm gonna be helping you. What are we gonna be doing? Help me help you. What have we gotta do?

What have we got to do to get here? Cause we're not getting here. If you need some software, if I need a better system, if we were short on if we've got one person's got too much stuff piled up on them and they can't get to it. All of that's fine. We have an allocated form Traffic, uh, because now in Hartford, Connecticut, there's traffic and during COVID there wasn't. And now we have to drive in traffic to get there, and so we have a missed appointment or we're late.

A and slow follow ups and all that stuff. So We're just not gonna do this anymore. We're gonna follow up. And by the way, we have a new rule. All customer emails and phone calls are answered within 24 hours. So if one comes to your personal inbox, you answer it that day. Period.

I don't care if it's your job. You answer it anyway and you make sure someone is getting the job done. You look over at your coworker and you say, hey, we gotta get this done. You heard what Ben said. We've got to fix this. Because we have a new standard around here, and it's a standard of excellence instead of piss-poor work. And we're not going to operate this way.

And so again, we're not picking on a certain person, but I can get very passionate and very angry at a broken system and at a broken lack of attention. So we don't do it this way. Now, I'll give you an example of that. We had One of our core values is high. levels of communication. I ramp. We value high levels of communication. We have lots of one on one accountability meetings.

with our each of our leaders. We have group leadership meetings. We have group team meetings where everybody's looking at each other going, What's what do we gotta do to get this? We got squads working on projects that are holding each other accountable. Uh we've got staff meeting with the entire company every Monday morning. We have a devotional every Wednesday morning. 100% you will gather at these times. We value communication.

Many years ago, uh, we had a project that we're working on that just absolutely was an epic circus. It was an absolute freaking disaster. Everything we touched turned a poop. It was just awful. And finally when we got the thing done and got the other side of it, I sat down with the leadership team and I went, Look, here's the this is what happened. We don't do this anymore and

You know, we're gonna fix this and whatever. A and and we're walking across the parking lot after the meeting, and one of my young leaders who was kind of a um You know why this didn't work. And I said, No, why? Well, I said, I think I know why. We just talked about it in there for the last hour and I don't really want to talk about it anymore. And I said it was said it was bad communications what it was. And he said, Yeah, and it was your fault.

And he started telling me where I had broken down. And he was exactly right. You know what? And so you gotta hold yourself to that standard too, B Ben.

that you're gonna not be part of anything. You can't stand back in the Ivory Tower and just throw a grenade out and say, Y'all fix this. No, you get up to your elbows in it and you help them fix it, but you also set a new standard, a cultural icon that says, you know, back where they can look back twenty years from now and they'll go, Yeah, I remember back in aught twenty five When we used to do that stuff and Ben came in and said no more and it's been no more since then.

And they can look back twenty years later and say, we don't do that. So some of our communication processes, weekly reports and other things, came about at Ramsey from a time where we sucked. And we had to fix it and not suck anymore. And so that's what we're talking about here, Ben.

is you guys suck right now at these things and you gotta get in there and you gotta help them. Leadership is service. You step in and serve the team by helping them and making sure that they have the tools they need to where we don't have any more. Missed appointment windows. Any more slow follow ups? Any more air quotes, miscommunication. Miscommunication usually in this situation falls under the heading of I don't give a crap. And if you don't give a crap, you don't get to work here.

Because we all care. We all act like we own it. And you don't get to stay here. So miscommunication is I didn't care enough enough I mailed it in and I'm like, Well, he didn't get it done again and I roll my eyes instead of making sure it freaking gets done. Take the bull by the horns, make sure this happens. Take the ball in your hands, put the bodies in the lane, and drop the stinking ball through the hoop.

Knock everything down until the freaking goal is accomplished. And that's everybody on the team has got to have that mentality. And that's a fired up and wired up thing that this matters and we're gonna fix it. We're not gonna mail it in again anymore on these particular subjects. So The good news is you got a small enough team, one meeting, and you will begin the process of fixing it. By the end of the first week it'll be largely gone.

Because you're gonna be stepping on these ants. Every time one of them runs out, you're gonna stomp it. And they're almost killing every one of these dad gum bugs until they're gone. And as soon as you start paying extreme intense attention to it, It will the the needle will move on this and you'll get it straightened out before you know it. And if a person uh arises to be the problem, then they're not a we. We don't do this anymore. So we can't keep you, because you're not a we.

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seventy. Jeff is in Lincoln, Nebraska. Hi Jeff. How are you? Just another day in paradise, Mr. Ramsey. How are you? It's better than I deserve, sir. How can I help? I love it. I love it. Well listen, s first and foremost, thank you for what you do for young entrepreneurs. Old entrepreneurs, everybody, uh everybody that I know listens to this podcast really appreciate it. So thank you for the service that you provide. Thank you.

I own and operate an equipment dealership uh here in Nebraska. I started this company right out of college about nine years ago. And lifetime sales of the company are just over fifty three million. Uh this year we're gonna end Probably somewhere just north of eight million dollars in grill threads.

with an EBITDA of around five hundred and forty thousand. So this is going to be our best year yet. Finally after nine years getting tuned in here to to how we can do the best job. My question today revolves around small teams. So I have a team of five people full time here and my challenge is how can we better prepare ourselves for when multiple staff members are gone with little or no notice?

And the context for the question comes from two Mondays ago when all of the team members were gone and it was just me. And it was a stressful day. Instead of working ten hours, I worked sixteen hours. I went home, I was a complete grump to my wife and my kids and I just I just have to find a better way to prepare not only the company but to prepare myself for when things happen. It was a mixture between

pre approved time off and kids getting sick and personnel getting sick, doctors' appointments, so on and so forth. It wasn't um from a position of, you know, uh abusing the privilege of time off. It was more about it was the perfect storm. And as I look back over the past nine years, this happens about once a quarter.

on one day they you know it's the perfect storm. So how as a as an entrepreneur who's involved with the company every day, who already has a full workload, how can I better position myself in the company to absorb those responsibilities without sacrificing customer service. Wow. Um I've had individuals or or or for short periods of time stuff like that happen. Um I've never had a hundred percent of my workforce out for a day. Um even when we were your si even when we were your size. Um so

Uh and and once a quarter is untenable. Um that tells me that coming to work is not a high priority. Well, I I think as I look at the other four team members, that could be true for one of them. Um, you know, one's my all star.

Um definitely unless, you know, he's on his deathbed, he's at work. Well w was he dying Monday? I mean where was he? Yeah, he he had a family emergency. There was a car wreck. Um and so it was like I said, it was the perfect storm. There was a Uh anybody's not once a quarter. Where was he on those other quarters? Yeah, uh mostly for that particular individual it's it's pre approved time off, like three weeks in advance, one day off.

Um, office manager, you know, has uh a a grandchild who is always ill. So she's gone occasionally. The other guy has a special needs son who has doctor's appointments and things. And right now we have a vacant in the other role. Uh it's a family problem, that's for sure. Um The mother and the father and in and former in laws, um, that's definitely carrying over into this person's attendance.

Okay. So well we've got individual cases going on here. Um but basically I'm gonna turn up the heat um that says, you know, um You can't leave me in here by myself. Your your lack of planning at home does not constitute a crisis on my part. Constitutes a crisis on your part. You have to be at work if you want the job. And so if if if something pops up with the child, uh your spouse is gonna have to handle it because you have to be at work.

And occasionally I can grant grace, but I don't have the margin for all you people to just not show up because it's not convenient that day. Yeah, and I think that's exactly right. I I'm Midwest polite. Yeah and I try to assume everybody's telling the truth and doing the best. And I but it's it's really, really I think they're pushing the edge of grace here.

and and and mercy and I think they're they're taking advantage of you to a point. I mean it's probably not that big a deal, but uh listen, I I mean I've got people here that that have had things come up and for a season We can let'em thing, have a thing. But if you can't come to work one day a week on average because of your childcare issue, I can't have you. I don't I I have to have people working. So I gotta get somebody else.

If you're just constantly if they just chronically have a medical problem over a long period of time, I mean a season I can give you the grace. We'll work around you, we'll f backfill for you, you know, that kind of stuff. But You know, when you came to work here, we work here Monday through Friday, we work in the building. Yep. We work in the building. And we don't we're we're work from work. That's who we are. And that's the job you took. And if you can't do that, I understand.

But uh, I mean, and again, a one-off or a car wreck or something, sure, we're not mean, nasty people, but my grandson is sick, and every time my grandson, you're the grand you're not even the mother, you're the grandmother. You're not at work. Uh no, that that's not gone uh once a year for that.

You know, and so we're gonna have to reset our expectations with these folk and go that's the thing. And if something does blow up, we have to have a self employed mentality around here where if you had a personal day off and your personal day was planned for three weeks. and your personal day plan is to be fishing and everybody else can't show up because of legitimate car wreck stuff, you gotta not fish that day. I'll give you another day to fish. You gotta come help me fish.

Because I gotta get I got I got fish to catch. So I mean, you know, I don't know what you're doing on your personal day. If your personal day's planning to be in Paris, France or something, you can't do anything about it, but that's probably not the case. It's probably that reasonable of me to communicate that to them. You know, the person who had his personal day off is it reasonable for me to

send a text and say Hey if it's possible I sure need the help no one else. I'll give you two days later. To offset this one day. But I need some help. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean I'll be but uh guys, I I mean so and so had a car wreck, another kid, you know, blew up whatever it was, I don't know. But I g whatever a and I'm stuck over here, I need some help. And really I would just call a staff meeting and say, We're not doing this anymore. Okay? We're not gonna have a thing where

Three personal emergencies and one I don't give a crap and one personal day combines with for me down being down here by myself. That's n the purpose of having a team is to have a team. And when everybody doesn't show up for various reasons and it leaves it on me, I'm not doing this anymore. So we're gonna have to have a reset on expectations and that is, is that you're at work unless something's really, really, really bad. Right, right.

Given all of that information, would you also potentially suggest hiring one or two more people to the team to cover? to plug those holes overlap or is this purely uh mentality issue? My wife seems to think that the margins are good enough I need to hire another full time person. That person would be busy maybe two thirds of the time, but the other third of the time. I would hire I would hire somebody else if they're busy all the time.

Um and that would the the more of the busy all the times you got, the better chances you got of not having anybody there again. That's kinda wild. But but I think the thing is this, th it's a small team and they have to realize when you work for a small business, you can't say the word It's not my job. 'Cause everything's your job when you work for a small business. We all lift boxes. We all answer the phone. We all show up and take orders.

Sometimes. Cause we all do whatever it takes, because there's just freaking five of us, boys and girls. And so we all gotta care deeply, or this place isn't gonna be here to write you a check. So we have to produce here and so there has we have to increase our intensity. You don't work for corporate America who's gonna piss on you the first time you mess up. But you also don't work for corporate America that's gonna put up with your incompetence and just not showing up and mailing it in.

'Cause I don't have the margin to do that. You guys gotta give a rip at a real high level or we're not gonna be able to grow. We're not gonna be able to get better. And if you don't wanna work here on that basis, I understand, but here we work while we're at work. Amen. I mean it's just that's I've had the this is this dis this is the very words I've used out of my mouth at staff meeting. I I say stuff like this. Uh not as much anymore, but I did for certain in the first ten years.

And go, this is what we do. I had to set the culture of a self-employed mentality. We're not mailing it in. Cause, you know, if my kid is sick, I can't not show up and do the radio show. Somebody's gotta cover the kid. Right? Yeah. I got it'cause the stinking microphone doesn't turn on. That radio station's kinda quiet.

That doesn't work. And I think I think that's I I think that's part of the problem is that it at m in my position, um, my wife and my m mother in law, to be honest with you, are able to handle those crises on my personal side and the other couple other team members don't have that infrastructure and they've not set themselves up with that infrastructure to handle those crises when they come up. I don't have a job for you to work here if you don't show up by four days out of five. Yeah.

And it's tough because those people are good when they're here. The one person in particular is really good and and it's A plus when they're here. Yeah. But that's the th they're still not fulfilling the job. The job description is they gotta be. Eight to five Monday through Friday. That's what we do, man. And it's like you know, and you have some personal time off and we can't all take it at once. If everybody turns in vacation on the same two weeks in the summer

You can't you can you're not gonna accept those applications for v no, everybody can't go on vacation at one time. Right, right. That's true. You know, we used to have to manage that'cause we'd have a whole department gone, nobody to answer the phone. You know, we're like, You can't do that. You know, you can't all be gone at the same time. I don't care if everybody likes June or not. No thank you. I mean

We we we just this is not we don't have any way to cover keep doing business. And when you get back your job won't be here'cause we'll be broke. You know I mean it's just so that somehow they don't get that urgency that's in my voice right now, that visceral feeling. And if they don't, then every little thing that comes up in their personal life becomes a reason to not go to work because they're mailing it in.

But if you got people that really want to be there and they're helping you drive the thing forward, they're not just there to collect a check, then you can you can do away with some of this. So I think you've got one of the five you're gonna have to replace. And I think you know who it is. And I think that'll change the culture of the whole thing too.

And you don't have to do it suddenly. I don't think anybody's mad at anybody, but you've been putting it off and you've been putting up with it and you've been putting up with it and you're you're you're getting tired even in your Midwestern way, as you said. You're getting sick of it.

And so you already know you probably got one, you may have two, and then maybe if you can get enough business coming in, you can do what your wife said. Let's get a full time person to work a full time job. The more of those we've got, I mean ten people, you've got less chance of this happening than five. And so you're getting off the treadmill stage.

more of a delegatable situation, the broader it gets. So and we can get you, you know, from uh eight million to sixteen million or something, right? That's what we want to get to. And but we're not gonna get there if n you know, every time somebody poops their diaper we can't have to go home. That just won't work. And so, man, it's It's hard. It's hard. And it sounds like I don't care. It's not that I don't care. It's just that I don't care. That's all it is. So Alright folks.

That about does it. Let's uh remember a better a weary warrior than a quivering critic. This world needs more high quality leaders. So take courage and lead. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thanks for joining us on Entree Leadership. If you're a business owner who's been grinding it out and rarely gets time to step back and think clearly, I want to tell you about something special.

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